Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (174 page)

No aspect of southern history—indeed, of American history—has attracted more attention than slavery. Among the scores of challenging and important books on slaves and masters, the following constitute a starting point for understanding the peculiar institution: Ulrich B. Phillips,
American Negro Slavery
([1918]; reissued edition with Foreword by Eugene Genovese, Baton Rouge, 1966); Kenneth M. Stampp,
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in The Ante-Bellum South
(New York, 1956); Stanley M. Elkins,
Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life
(1st ed., 1959; 3rd ed., rev., Chicago, 1976); Eugene D. Genovese,
The Political Economy of Slavery
(New York, 1965) and
Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
(New York, 1974); John W. Blassingame,
The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South
(1st ed., 1972, rev. and enlarged ed., New York, 1979); Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman,
Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery
(Boston, 1974); an anthology of some of the numerous criticisms and challenges of this work is
Reckoning with Slavery: A Critical Study in the Quantitative History of American Negro Slavery
by Paul A. David and others (New York, 1976); also see Herbert G. Gutman,
The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom
(New York, 1976); Willie Lee Rose,
Slavery and Freedom
(New York, 1982); and James Oakes,
The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders
(New York, 1982). The unhappy lot of free blacks in both North and South has been chronicled by Leon F. Litwack,
North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States
(Chicago, 1961); and Ira Berlin,
Slaves without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South
(New York, 1974). For the success story of a free black family that owned slaves, see Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark,
Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South
(New York, 1984).

Only a tiny sampling of the rich literature on the frontier and the westward movement can be listed here. Malcolm J. Rohrbaugh's
The Trans-Appalachian Frontier
(New York, 1978) narrates the settlement of the inland empire between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, while Ray Allen Billington's
The Far Western Frontier 1830–1860
(New York, 1956) does the same for the vast region west of the Mississippi. The expansionism of the Polk administration that led to war with Mexico is treated in: Frederick Merk,
Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History
(New York, 1963); Norman A. Graebner,
Empire on the Pacific: A Study in Continental Expansion
(New York, 1955); and David Pletcher,
The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Mexico, and the Mexican War
(Columbia, Mo., 1973). The popular enthusiasm generated by the victorious war of conquest is documented by Robert W. Johannsen,
To the Halls of the Montezumas: The War with Mexico in the American Imagination
(New York, 1985); but for the strong opposition to the war among Whigs and antislavery people, see John H. Schroeder,
Mr. Folk's War: American Opposition and Dissent
, 1846–1848 (Madison, 1973).

The fateful consequences of the controversy over expansion of slavery into the territories acquired from Mexico are the starting point for the best single book on the sectional conflict leading to Civil War, David M. Potter,
The Impending Crisis 1848–1861
(New York, 1976). A briefer study that emphasizes the breakdown of the second party system as a causal factor of secession rather than as a result of sectional conflict is Michael F. Holt,
The Political Crisis of the 1850s
(New York, 1978). The emergence of the Free Soil party is discussed in: Richard H. Sewell,
Ballots for Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States 1837–1860
(New York, 1976); Joseph G. Rayback,
Free Soil: The Election of 1848
(Lexington, Ky., 1970); and Frederick J. Blue,
The Free Soilers: Third Party Politics 1848–1854
(Urbana, 1973). The most concise account of the complex process that produced the Compromise of 1850 is Holman Hamilton,
Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850
(Lexington, Ky., 1964).

The hostility and violence generated by the fugitive slave law can be followed in: Stanley W. Campbell,
The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law 1850–1860
(Chapel Hill, 1970); and Thomas D. Morris,
Free Men All: The Personal Liberty Laws of the North 1780–1861
(Baltimore, 1974). The South's failed quest for economic independence in the 1850s is the subject of: Robert Royal Russel,
Economic Aspects of Southern Sectionalism
, 1840–1861 (Urbana, 1923); Herbert Wender,
Southern Commercial Conventions 1837–1859
(Baltimore, 1930); and Fred Bateman and Thomas Weiss, A
Deplorable Scarcity: The Failure of Industrialization in the Slave Economy
(Chapel Hill, 1981). For southern efforts to acquire new slave territory by both legal and illegal means, see Robert E. May,
The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire
, 1854–1862 (Baton Rouge, 1973); Charles H. Brown,
Agentsof Manifest Destiny: The Lives and Times of the Filibusters
(Chapel Hill, 1980); and William O. Scroggs,
Filibusters and Financiers: TheStory of William Walker and His Associates
(New York, 1916). Southern support for reopening the slave trade is documented in Ronald T. Takaki, A
Pro-Slavery Crusade: The Agitation to Reopen the Slave Trade
(New York, 1971). All these developments and other manifestations of southern nationalism are discussed in John McCardell,
The Idea of a Southern Nation
. . . 1830–1860 (New York, 1979). The preoccupation of southern politicians with the defense of slavery is the theme of William J. Cooper, Jr.,
The South and the Politics of Slavery 1828–1856
(Baton Rouge, 1978); while Clement Eaton,
The Freedom-of-Thought Struggle in the Old South
(rev. and enlarged ed., New York, 1964), discusses the southern closing of ranks against outside criticism; Avery Craven's
The Coming of the Civil War
(rev. ed., Chicago, 1957) and
The Growth of Southern Nationalism 1848–1861
(Baton Rouge, 1953) tend to justify southern sectionalism as a natural response to northern aggression. Bertram Wyatt-Brown,
Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South
(New York, 1982), analyzes that quality in southern culture that made southrons so touchy about affronts to their "rights."

The best introduction to the free-labor ideology of the Republican party that underlay its opposition to the expansion of slavery is Eric Foner,
Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War
(New York, 1970); while the fullest account of the matrix of politics, ideology, and nativism out of which the party was born is William E. Gienapp,
The Origins of the Republican Party
, 1852–1856 (New York, 1987). For the tangled web of Democratic politics that produced the Kansas-Nebraska Act, consult George Fort Milton,
The Eve of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War
(Boston, 1934); and Robert W. Johannsen,
Stephen A. Douglas
(New York, 1973). For a sensitive rendering of the response by Lincoln in the context of the emerging Republican opposition, see Don E. Fehren-bacher,
Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850's
(Stanford, 1962). For the consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in Kansas as well as Washington, see James A. Rawley,
Race and Politics: "Bleeding Kansas" and the Coming of the Civil War
(Philadelphia, 1969); and Alice Nichols,
Bleeding Kansas
(New York, 1954). The transformation of politics in two important states is analyzed by Stephen E. Maizlish,
The Triumph of Sectionalism: The Transformation of Ohio Politics, 1844–1856
(Kent, 1983); and Dale Baum,
The Civil War Party System: The Case of Massachusetts
, 1848–1876 (Chapel Hill, 1984).

The development of a sectional schism in the Democratic party during the Buchanan administration is the subject of Roy F. Nichols,
The Disruption of the American Democracy
(New York, 1948). Every conceivable facet of the Dred Scott case is examined by Don E. Fehren-bacher,
The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics
(New York, 1978). The most systematic analysis of the Lincoln-Douglas debates is Harry V. Jaffa,
An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
(New York, 1959). Of the large literature on John Brown and the Harper's Ferry raid, the most detailed study is Oswald Garrison Villard,
John Brown
, 1800–1859 (Boston, 1910); and the most recent biography is Stephen B. Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John
Brown (New York, 1970). Some new information and insights can be found in Jeffery S. Rossbach,
Ambivalent Conspirators: John Brown, the Secret Six, and a Theory of Slave Violence
(Philadelphia, 1982). Four older monographs on the election of 1860 that emphasize the emergence of Lincoln and the South's behavior in light of his probable election are still of value: Emerson D. Fite,
The Presidential Campaign of 1860
(New York, 1911); William E. Baringer,
Lincoln's Rise to Power
(Boston, 1937); Reinhard H. Luthin,
The First Lincoln Campaign
(Cambridge, Mass., 1944); and Ollinger Crenshaw,
The Slave States in the Presidential Election of 1860
(Baltimore, 1945)

An older monograph on the secession movement is also still of value: Dwight L. Dumond,
The Secession Movement 1860–1861
(New York, 1931). Ralph Wooster,
The Secession Conventions of the South
(Princeton, 1962), presents basic factual data on the conventions and their delegates; while Donald E. Reynolds, Editors
Make War: Southern Newspapers in the Secession Crisis
(Nashville, 1970), documents the important role of the press in whipping up sentiment for secession. Among the best and most recent studies of the lower-South states that went out first are: Steven A. Channing, A
Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina
(New York, 1970); William L. Barney,
The Secessionist Impulse: Alabama and Mississippi in 1860
(Princeton, 1974); and Michael P. Johnson,
Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia
(Baton Rouge, 1977). Several older studies chronicle the initial unionism and post-Sumter secession of the upper South: Henry T. Shanks,
The Secession Movement in Virginia
, 1847–1861 (Richmond, 1934); J. Carlyle Sitterson,
The Secession Movement in North Carolina
(Chapel Hill, 1939); and Mary E. R. Campbell,
The Attitude of Tennesseans toward the Union
(New York, 1961). For the border states, see William J. Evitts,
A Matter of Allegiances: Maryland from 1850 to 1861
(Baltimore, 1974); E. Merton Coulter,
The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky
(Chapel Hill, 1926); and William E. Parrish,
Turbulent Partnership: Missouri and the Union
, 1861–1865 (Columbia, Mo., 1963). Among several one-volume histories of the Confederacy, the most detailed and the most recent both contain good accounts of secession and the establishment of a new Confederate government: E. Merton Coulter,
The Confederate States of America 1861–1865
(Baton Rouge, 1950); and Emory M. Thomas,
The Confederate Nation, 1861–1865
(New York, 1979)

Essential for understanding the response of the North and especially of Republicans to southern secession are books by two of the foremost historians of this era: David M. Potter,
Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis
(New Haven, 1942, reissued with new preface, 1962); and Kenneth M. Stampp,
And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860–61
(Baton Rouge, 1950). For the failure of the Washington peace conference to resolve the secession crisis, see Robert G. Gunderson,
Old Gentleman's Convention: The Washington Peace Conference of 1861
(Madison, 1961). The issues and the action at Fort Sumter are dramatically laid out by Richard N. Current,
Lincoln and the First Shot
(Philadelphia, 1963); and William A. Swanberg,
First Blood: The Story of Fort Sumter
(New York, 1957).

The military campaigns of the Civil War have evoked some of the most vivid writing in American historical literature, only a tiny sample of which can be included here. The most graphic epic, nearly three thousand pages by a novelist who is also a fine historian, is Shelby Foote,
The Civil War: A Narrative
, 3 vols. (New York, 1958–74), which leans slightly South in its sympathies. Leaning slightly the other way and written in a similarly readable style is Bruce Catton,
The Centennial History of the Civil War:
Vol. I:
The Coming Fury;
Vol. II:
Terrible Swift Sword;
Vol. III: Never
Call Retreat
(Garden City, 1961–65). Another trilogy by a prolific historian of the Civil War is in progress, with two volumes having thus far appeared: William C. Davis,
The Imperiled Union: 1861–1865:
Vol. I:
The Deep Waters of the Proud
and Vol. II:
Stand in the Day of Battle
(Garden City, N.Y. 1982–83). Two marvelous volumes on Civil War soldiers, by one of the giants of Civil War historiography, are based on research in hundreds of collections of letters, diaries, and memoirs, published and unpublished: Bell Irvin Wiley's
The Life of Johnny Reb
(Indianapolis, 1943) and
The Life of Billy Yank
(Indianapolis, 1952). Ella Lonn,
Desertion During the Civil War
(New York, 1928), provides data on that melancholy subject. For the war at sea and on the rivers, see especially Virgil Carrington Jones,
The Civil War at Sea
, 3 vols. (New York, 1960–62).